The contributions in this collective volume offer insights into the ways friendship is conceptualized and realized in various sub-Saharan African contexts. They relate friendship to other types of relatedness, in particular descent and alliance, thereby drawing attention to the complexity of social relations. Contents: Foreword (Günther Schlee); Introduction (Martine Guichard). --Part I Friendship, kinship and age. Where are other people's friends hiding? Reflections on anthropological studies of friendship (Martine Guichard); Comradeship and the transformation of alliance theory among the Maasai: shifting the focus from descent to peer-group loyalty (Paul Spencer). --Part II Friendship and ethnicity. Friendship networks in southwestern Ethiopia (Wolde Gossa Tadesse and Martine Guichard); Friendship and spiritual parenthood among the Moose and the Fulbe in Burkina Faso (Mark Breusers); Labour migration and moral dimensions of interethnic friendships: the case of young gold miners in Benin (West Africa) (Tilo Grätz). --Part III. Friendship, politics and urbanity. Friendship and kinship among merchants and veterans in Mali (Richard L. Warms); 'Down-to-earth': friendship and a national elite circle in Botswana (Richard Werbner); Negotiating friendship and kinship in a context of violence: the case of the Tuareg during the upheaval in Mali from 1990 to 1996 (Georg Klute). Afterword: friendship in a world of force and power (Stephen P. Reyna). [ASC Leiden abstract]